FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I display text correctly?

2. Can I enter China on a one-way or must I have a return ticket in hand before entering the country?

3. I’m arriving during the designated arrival period, so can I move straight into the student accommodation?

4. The website I want to view is blocked. How can I access it?

5. The Internet is down. What do I do?

6. The water cooler is out of water. Where do I get more water?

7. Why can't I get the Chinese characters to display in my version of Adobe Reader?

8. How do I display comments and edits in my paper?

9. How do I open a Microsoft Works file using Microsoft Word?

ANSWERS

1. How do I display text correctly?

If you are unable to view Chinese text, special symbols or diacritic marks correctly, you will need to change the text encoding of your web browser. To change the encoding in Internet Explorer, open the View menu on your browser, scroll down to Encoding, and select "Unicode (UTF-8)."

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2. Can I enter China on a one-way or must I have a return ticket in hand before entering the country?

You do not need a round-trip ticket to the enter China, although round-trip tickets are typically much less expensive than two one-way tickets and many airline companies, such as Japanese Airlines (JAL), offer one-year open return round-trip tickets between the U.S. and China.

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3. I’m arriving during the designated arrival period, so can I move straight into the student accommodation?

We recommend students to make advanced reservations in a hotel, hostel or in the on-campus hotel at the International College if arriving prior to the standard arrival period, but fall semester students should do so at least three weeks in advance since this is the start of the semester for hundreds of international students and rooms fill quickly. Global College students are, however, permitted to move into the International Students Dormitory before the first day of the semester if reservations have been made in advance. The China Center Administrator picking you up at the airport can send you to the dormitory address, and the staff there will have a list with your name on it, but you will need to pay the first month rent yourself, since housing stipends will not be paid to your accounts until the first day of the semester. For this reason we recommend staying in a hotel room at least for the first night and especially if you are arriving late in the evening. If you are planning to live in an off-campus apartment you will need to arrange this yourself (Center staff will be unavailable to help) and we recommend you arrive two weeks early to pursue this.

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4. The website I want to view is blocked. How can I access it?

In order to access sites blocked by the government, you will need to surf the Internet anonymously. To do so you must first install and configure a compatible Internet browser, proxy server and onion router on your computer. We recommend Mozilla Fire Fox, Privoxy and Tor, respectively.

A. Download and install the most recent version of Mozilla Fire Fox, a free, cross-platform, open-source graphical web browser.

B. Download and install the most recent version of Tor, an anonymous Internet communication system that redirects traffic along a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Click the Download tab on the Tor home page for the latest release for your operating system, typically the one listed under Windows installer.

C. Download and install the most recent stable version of Privoxy, a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting anonymity. Click on Download Recent Releases and choose the latest version for your operating system, typically the one listed under Win32, which will popup a list of mirror sites from which you can download.

D. Next open the Main Configuration file located under the Start menu in the Privoxy program folder within the Edit Config folder. Next, copy the following text after the colon and including the final period and paste in the top line of the Privoxy Main Configuration file, save and close: forward-socks4a / localhost:9050 .

E. Next open Fire Fox, and under Tools open the Options menu and click the Connection Settings button. Click the Manual Proxy Configuration radio button and check to use the same proxy for all protocols. In the HTTP Proxy field type: “localhost” (as one word and without the quotation marks). In the Local Port field type: “8118” and click OK twice to exit the settings menu.

F. After you restart your computer, make sure Privoxy is running (there should be a green “P” icon in the systems tray) and then open Tor. You may close the Privoxy window if it is open, but the Tor window must remain open the entire time you are online, although it may be minimized to the task bar. Open the Fire Fox browser and you should be able to access all sites previously inaccessible in China.

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5. The Internet is down. What do I do?

If the Internet is not working, please try the following before contacting the Administrator:

A. Try using a different browser. It is possible the Internet is working but the Internet browser is not. If you are using the Fire Fox browser, the Privoxy and Tor programs must be running in the background.

B. Try rebooting your computer or using a different terminal.

Note that you should print this information in advance, since you will be unable to view this page if the Internet is not working.

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6. The water cooler is out of water. Where do I get more water?

If the water cooler in the conference room is out of water and there is not another full bottle beside the cooler, notify the student in charge of changing water bottles or please call the number 87951425, which is printed on the front side of the cooler, youself and say the below sentence in Chinese:

"Qǐng sòng yī tǒng Qiāndǎo Shānquán dào xiàonèi jiào shíyī lóu sān lóu sānlíngsān shì Měiguó Chángdǎo Dàxué"

Alternatively, copy or print the below sentence and take it to the water delivery stand located immediately on your right as you exit the main gate of Yuquan Campus, just south of the city bus stop and next to the bicycle path on Yugu Road:

请送一桶千岛山泉到校内教11楼3楼303室美国长岛大学

The water delivery man will be sent shortly after and will exchange water bottles for you, after which you should provide a pre-paid ticket clipped to the side of the cooler.

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7. Why can't I get the Chinese characters to display in my version of Adobe Reader?

In order to display simplified and traditional Chinese characters in Acrobat Reader, you must first download and install these East Asian font packs, otherwise any Chinese characters will display as dots. First login as the computer administrator, allow for pop-up windows in your browser and then select the appropriate version, language and platform on the Asian and Central European font packs for Adobe Reader webpage here.

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8. How do I display comments and edits in my paper?

Some instructors, including the Academic Director and Writing Instructor, will return papers to students with comments and edits inserted using the available tools in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF.

To display your instructors remarks in Microsoft Word first select Markup under the View menu. Next select either Normal, Web Layout or Print Layout under the View menu for different results.

If you select Normal view, deleted text will display in red with a horizontal line through the center, followed by red underlined text inserted by your instructor. Comments are indicated by red brackets around the text in question. To view these comments simply hold the cursor over the text between the brackets. To accept a deletion or insertion right-click on the text and accept or reject it accordingly. Before doing so, however, please first read through your original sentence with and then without the instructor’s edits to learn from the difference. This view is preferred for viewing inserted and deleted text.

If you select Web Layout or Print Layout views, changes and comments all display in the right-hand margin in red text boxes with dashed lines pointing to the point of insertion or deletion. You may find it easier to read comments after increasing the display size. To do so select Zoom under the View menu and change to 150%. Note that comments and edits cannot be made within the text of a footnote and are typically indicated by a comment attached to the note number in the body of the main text. These views can become cluttered with deletions and insertions, but are preferred for viewing comments.

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9. How do I open a Microsoft Works file using Microsoft Word?

Most of your faculty will use Microsoft Word to read and comment on all work submitted digitally, so if you use a Macintosh computer or Microsoft Works as your text editor, save your document by selecting Save As under the File menu, and select the file type “Word Document (*.doc).” Do not save as *.wps or other file type. If you want to read a document in Microsoft Word that has been saved as a Microsoft Works file with a “*.wps” file extension, you will need to first download and install the Works 6.0 Converter for Works and Word Users from the Microsoft Download Center. Click on this link to download the file “wp6rtf.exe.”

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